New Delhi, 4 August (ENI)-Church leaders in India are in shock after the brutal murder last week of a prominent Lutheran bishop in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The police claim that the murder was linked to conflict within the bishop's church. Many senior Indian church officials are refusing to comment. Bishop Gangavarapu Emmanuel, president of the 800 000-member Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC), was
attacked with knives and axes by three men inside the AELC complex at Guntur on 29 July after he stepped out of his office for lunch. [Ecumencial News International-00-0301]
BRITAIN - RELIGION CORRESPONDENT - by Ruth Gledhill - August 28 2000 PARISHES in the Church of England will next month be urged to hold "Christian seances" and encourage worshippers to develop their "psychic
skills", at a church conference. David Christie-Murray, a former Harrow schoolmaster and Anglican priest, will call on parishes to set up a "Christian rescue group", or seance, to help the souls of atheists and others who have "passed over to the other side". Such souls, he believes, are "lost and bewildered, in a condition in which they did
not believe in this life and cannot understand now that they have passed over into the next." He will argue that there is evidence the dead can communicate with the living.The fifth "Christian Parapsychology" conference, at Christ Church College, Canterbury, is sponsored by the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies. The fellowship, founded in 1953, aims to explore the "gifts of the spirit", such as speaking in tongues, as described by St Paul, operates discreetly to avoid sensationalist
interpretations of its reports. It is at the centre of the Church establishment: patrons include the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope.
- The conference organiser, Canon Michael Perry, gave warning against setting up Christian seances in parish churches to help lost souls on their way. "Most English dioceses have bishops' advisers on deliverance
who can help with such matters," he said.- [ Source: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/28/timnwsnws01002.html ]
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (AFP) [Condensed]- The Security Council, which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged member states to reform "without delay," Annan's recommendation came in April in a bid to set the agenda for the three-day
summit starting on September 6. "One critical area" was reform of the Security Council."Some of the 150 heads of state and government attending ..But the council itself, and its five permanent members in particular, have underscored their centrality to the work of the world body by scheduling meetings of their own. .. Mali, is ..expected to pass a resolution endorsing a new report calling for radical reforms of the UN's methods of peacekeeping.
One permanent council member observed that a resolution requires a vote, and that the session would be "more photogenic if 15 heads of state or government raise their hands."
Mali, one of the 10 non-permanent members elected for two years by regional blocs in the General Assembly, holds the rotating presidency of the council for September... British Prime Minister Tony Blair and presidents Jiang Zemin of China, Jacques Chirac of France, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bill Clinton of the United States will represent states with permanent seats and the power to veto council decisions.
In his report, Annan recalled that these were the powers which emerged victorious from World War II .. The P-5, as they are known in diplomatic jargon, have nevertheless decided to hold a session of their own, behind closed doors.
Among proposals being informally discussed by council members is one to increase the membership to 24, with five of the nine new seats being held permanently by a country from each region.. Council reform was the only recommendation in Annan's report which would entail changing the UN Charter. [Agence France-Presse ]
The "President's Working Draft," which won't be released to the public until just before the conference, shows the desire of the U.N. to be the central actor on the world stage. Summit participants will be asked to affirm their "faith in the Organization and its Charter as indispensable foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just world."
Over seven sections of the draft document call for increased commitments to peace, human rights, poverty reduction and environmental protection. Opening sentences give the document's feel: "We will spare no effort to free our peoples from the scourge of war." "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from ... conditions of extreme
poverty." "We must spare no effort to free all of humanity, and above all our children and grandchildren, from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities." "We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law."The document calls for the increased capacity for the U.N. to conduct peacekeeping operations, the timely paying of U.N. dues, the "speedy reform and enlargement of the Security Council," the elimination of nuclear weapons, the "prevention of trafficking in small arms and light weapons," "debt relief for the least developed nations," and the
"promotion of gender equality in its own right."The document calls for the ratification of seven existing treaties, including the Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court, the Ottawa Treaty banning land mines, the Kyoto Protocols on global warming, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The document calls for one new treaty ­ a Convention Against Terrorism - and a world conference on nuclear disarmament.
The draft document will concern many. If they come to pass, some of the ideas in the draft document will cause problems in the coming years. [http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a 00/8/24/202112 ]
8 Oct 2000 - TONY BLAIR enraged Euro-sceptics yesterday by calling for the EU to become a global superpower to rival the economic and political strength of America.
The Prime Minister put himself at the forefront of the debate on Europe's future by setting out a vision of the EU as a world force based on the "collective power" of its members. He unveiled proposals to impose more democratic accountability on the European Commission, including a requirement that it publish an annual agenda of its plans.
Mr Blair, speaking during a visit to Warsaw, called on the EU to draw up a "charter of competences" that would set out clearly the limits of its powers but would stop short of being a fully-fledged European constitution. In a direct rebuff to France, he rejected calls for the creation of an exclusive "hard core" of EU members and called on the EU's elected parliaments and governments to impose their authority on Brussels.
Mr Blair said: "Whatever its origin, Europe today is no longer just about peace. It is about projecting collective power. Europe is a Europe of free, independent sovereign nations who choose to pool that sovereignty in pursuit of their own interests and the common good, achieving more together than we can achieve alone. The EU will remain a unique combination of the intergovernmental and the supranational.
"Such a Europe can, in its economic and political strength, be a superpower - a superpower not a superstate." His speech, titled Europe: building a superpower not a superstate, was seen as an attempt by Downing Street to match the impact of Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech, in which she said "no" to further European integration.
His chief spokesman said Mr Blair had discussed the contents of the speech in advance with Chris Patten and Neil Kinnock, Britain's euro-phile EU commissioners. But the Tories last night warned that his "dangerous posturing" would endanger Britain's relations with Nato and America.
Francis Maude, shadow foreign secretary, said: "Tony Blair has nailed his colours to the mast. Clearly, he wants to be in Europe and run by Europe. How can the EU be a superpower without being a superstate? This dangerous posturing will damage Nato and our relationship with the US."
Mr Blair's attack on France follows Jacques Chirac's call for the creation of a "pioneer group" of nations headed by France and Germany to take the lead on further integration.
Mr Blair, who has built alliances with some EU countries uneasy with France's domination of the Euro project, said: "I have no problem with greater flexibility or groups of member states going forward together. But that must not lead to a hard-core; a Europe in which some member states create their own set of shared policies and institutions from which others are in practice excluded." ...
"The problems Europe's citizens have with Europe arise when Europe's priorities aren't theirs. No amount of institutional change, most of which passes them by completely, will change that. The citizens of Europe must feel that they own Europe, not that Europe owns them." Mr Blair said the European Council, made up of government ministers, should publish an annual agenda, similar to the Queen's Speech, that would set out its legislative programme.
In what was interpreted as a rebuke to Romano Prodi, the EU president, who has tried to emphasise the commission's growing role in setting the pace for the EU, Mr Blair said the "clear political direction" should come from the members' elected governments. On enlargement, he called for the first wave of applicant countries, including Poland and Hungary, to be made members in time to take part in the 2004 Euro elections.
He said the expansion of the EU up to 25 or 30 members would mean streamlining the commission and introducing group presidencies. Instead of waiting their turn in the rotating presidency system to come up every 12 or 15 years, members states could team up. Europe was too diverse and dynamic for a single written constitution. But he called for the drafting of a statement of principles defining limits for the EU.
He also proposed the creation of a second chamber, made up of parliamentarians from member countries, to provide "democratic oversight". [Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000118613908976&rtmo=gwnSYw7u&atmo=gwnSYw7u&pg=/et/00/10/7/weu07.html ]
Melbourne (ENI). September 6, 2000 - The National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) has strongly criticised a recent decision by the Australian government to deny visas and information to United Nations human rights committees. The government's decision follows UN criticism of Australian treatment of its indigenous
people and of asylum-seekers. The NCCA, which includes Australia's Catholic, mainstream Protestant and Orthodox churches, described the government's reaction to the UN as tragic, and one that will diminish Australia in the eyes of the world. The council's general secretary, David Gill, has written to the Australian prime minister, John Howard, expressing ''surprise and concern'' and asking him to reconsider the decision, announced on 29 August. [Ecumenical New International ]
ISLAMABAD, AUGUST 16 (ZENIT.org).- A few days ago, the government of Pakistan rejected a U.N. proposal to finance national education programs worth $250 million, on the condition that courses on the "benefits" of population control be included. According to Vatican Radio, during a meeting with officials of the U.N. Population Fund, Pakistani Health Minister Abdul Malik Kasi rejected the U.N. proposal whose real objective
was birth control, disguised in the mystifying language of "reproductive health." [Source:ZE00081607 http://www.zenit.org ]
IsraelWire-11/13 Participants in an anti-Israel demonstration in Stockholm, Sweden, on Saturday called upon their government to take a more definitive anti-Israel stand in the ongoing unrests in the Middle East between Israel and the PLO Authority (PA). The rally began at a downtown plaza and continued outside the royal palace.
Queen Silvia was criticized for having spoken out in the past against Arab mothers who permit their children to participate in stone-throwing attacks against Israeli security forces. The queen made her remarks in a recent United Nations address. [ Israelwire ]
YET AGAIN, as so often before in the Middle East peace process, the glass is both half-empty and half-full. The confusion yesterday afternoon was symptomatic. First came the urgent announcement (sourced to a Palestinian official) of a meeting in New York next week between the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. That was followed soon after by equally urgent denials from the Israelis. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. The truth is that nobody, including the participants, quite knows.
President Clinton, meanwhile, is eager to remain centre-stage. In the dying days of his presidency, Mr Clinton is clearly anxious to be remembered for something other than That Dress. His involvement in the peace process can thus be seen as a last bid to be respectfully remembered in the history books; Mr Clinton's motives will, however, come to seem less important than the result. After his meeting yesterday with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, it was clear that there had been little progress, despite the best intentions of both sides. But the process is not quite dead.
The Palestinians have said that if no progress is made during the next fortnight, they will declare an independent state on 13 September. That may just be bluster. Equally, however, the chances of reaching an agreement by that date look frail. [ The Independent - London courtesy of Screaming Media ]
Leah Rabin was to be laid to rest in Jerusalem Wednesday at the side of her husband, slain warrior-turned peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin, as the peace they both dreamed receded to a drumbeat of Israeli-Palestinian escalation.
Israeli forces were on high alert in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, fearing fresh violence marking the anniversary of a symbolic declaration of Palestinian independence issued in Algiers in 1988 at the height of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
As mourners filed by Leah Rabin's body Wednesday morning at the site of the late prime minister's 1995 assassination following a Tel Aviv peace rally, Israeli officials said a spate of Paslestinian killings in the territories had spurred them to reassess the policy of relative military restraint the government has observed in recent weeks.
"There is no possibility of continuing the policy of restraint, period," said cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, acting prime minister Monday night when gunmen killed four Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"No one should delude themselves that they will shed the blood of Jews and we will just sit quietly by," Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio.
Palestinians, meanwhile, planned a series of mass marches that threatened to turn violent, with Fatah movement leaders calling for demonstrators to mark the independence anniversary by marching on Jewish settlements in expressions of what they termed "popular sovereignty.
More than 1,500 mourners were expected to attend the funeral of Leah Rabin, who took up the role of prodding the peace process forward following her husband's death.
New York Senator-elect Hillary Clinton and a number of European heads of state have also announced they will attend.
Though already succumbing to the cancer of which she died Sunday at age 72, Leah Rabin pursued her gadfly role as recently as last month, when she issued a public appeal to Prime Minister Ehud Barak to reverese a decision to forbid a truce meeting between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and her husband's peacemaking colleague Shimon Peres.
In the end, Barak relented, and the meeting took place, although the resulting cease-fire collapsed soon after.
The caustic, outspoken Rabin antagonized many on the Israeli right by linking her husband's assassination to the political climate created by the criticism of then-Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu and others.
The right has steadfastly rejected Rabin's charges.
But Israeli leftists noted with alarm that the tone of militant demonstrators at an anti-Barak rally late Tuesday recalled the vehement anger that Rabin's opponents had demonstrated prior to his November, 1995 killing by an ultra-nationalist Israeli opposed to his peace policies with the Palestinians.
Among posters displayed at the Jerusalem rally was a picture of a Palestinian who took part in the lynch-style killing of two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last month, captioned: "Barak's partner." [Source: Courtesy of Ha'aretz ]
ISRAEL: The are many institutions in Israel that fostre interfaith dialogues. Most meet quietly and discreetly, until some extraordinary event like a visit by the pope or the Dalai Lama suddenly exposes the participants' inconspicuous work to media coverage. "The quiet peace process" is the way Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council of Israel (ICCI) refers the phenomenon. The ICCI is an ymbrella organization of 65 Jewish, Christian, Moslem, and ecumenical groups in Israel which work to strengthen relations between members of the major faith communities in the country... Christian clergy included an Anglican, a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran and a Baptist. The rabbis were a mix of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.
One of the leaders of the ongoing dialogue is Bishop Munib Younan, the head of the Lutheran Church of the Holy Land, who initiated the meetings between clergymen 10 years ago. The dialogue "brings us nearer to another," he declares. "It helps us to see God in one another and to see also the hidden God even in the conflict." [Source: The International Jerusalem Post, October 20, 2000]
Editor's Note: Mohammed is not Jesus Christ nor is Allah the triune God.
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